Today I spent the first half of the day teach­ing a sem­i­nar, Social MEdia 4 Stu­dents. I was very excited to be invited by the local com­mu­nity col­lege whose Tech Prep pro­gram works dili­gently to take high school stu­dents through career explo­ration and encour­ages those not in the aca­d­e­mic cur­ricu­lum to seek some type of post-secondary edu­ca­tion, whether a tech­ni­cal cer­tifi­cate or asso­ciate degree.

The focus of my topic was to cre­ate aware­ness at an early age of the last­ing impres­sion of dig­i­tal foot­prints, the impor­tance of rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment, per­sonal brand build­ing and how to use new media to advance one’s career goals.

Very few of the 40 or so stu­dents were famil­iar with any­thing other than Face­book, Myspace, YouTube and last.fm. The were not aware they could join niche indus­try groups, search blogs by pro­fes­sion­als in the fields they’re inter­ested in, cre­ate an online port­fo­lio, host an inter­net radio show, be a cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist.… so many things.

I applaud LIU18, Luzerne County Com­mu­nity Col­lege, the Tech Prep team and the sin­cere remarks made by Pres­i­dent Tom Leary about how the col­lege will be ready and wel­com­ing to each and every stu­dent in the audi­to­rium today when they are ready. I know it’s true, I am an alum.

I have a heavy heart how­ever. There were stu­dents who had no clue, had no guid­ance, had no role mod­els. It was so appar­ent. Some nod­ded off no mat­ter how ani­mated I was and how many ques­tions I asked. Some filled out the eval­u­a­tions say­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion was “stu­pid”. I can only imag­ine these stu­dents have no one encour­ag­ing them to stretch their imag­i­na­tion, be inno­v­a­tive or explore how tech­nol­ogy can ben­e­fit them.

I’m ask­ing you to become involved in your school sys­tem & com­mu­nity based groups that deal with youth. Offer your exper­tise to young peo­ple who may not have any­one at home to give them the guid­ance they need to the obtain an edu­ca­tion that will enable them to attain employ­ment at a wage that will be fam­ily sus­tain­ing. Men­tor them, be their friend and role model.

Vol­un­teer.… it takes a vil­lage. Tomor­row I’m going back. What will you do?